One day, I opened the door and saw someone I didn’t expect. It was my dad. I hadn’t seen him for ages. In fact, I didn’t want to.

“Hi, son. I’m sorry to come like this. I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer your phone,” he told me.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“I was wondering if maybe I could stay with you… I don’t have a place right now, so…”

“You can stay. But you have to pay rent.”

“But I don’t have any money at all… and you’re the only person who can help me.”

“I don’t care,” I said, feeling my heart tighten. “You can live on the street. I wish God had taken you instead of Mom!”

He flinched. His lips trembled like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, he just nodded, turned around, and walked away. The old me, the little boy who used to cry himself to sleep after Mom and I had to hide from his drunken rages, would have been happy to see him suffer. But the man I had become felt… conflicted.

I closed the door, but I didn’t feel relieved. I felt heavy, like something was sitting on my chest. I told myself it was better this way. He had left us when I was twelve, walked out and never looked back. When Mom died, he showed up six months later like he had any right to grieve her. And now, when he needed something, he came crawling to me.

Still, I couldn’t get the image of him out of my head. He looked thinner, older. His beard was overgrown, his clothes smelled like a mix of sweat and cigarettes. He didn’t look drunk, though. That was new.

The next morning, I drove by the bus station, half-hoping, half-dreading that I’d see him there. And sure enough, there he was, sitting on a bench with his arms crossed, his chin resting on his chest. He looked like he was sleeping. Or maybe just too tired to do anything else.

I parked and walked up to him. “You eaten anything?”

His eyes opened slowly, and he squinted up at me, like he wasn’t sure I was real. “Not since yesterday.”

I sighed. “Come on.”

I took him to a cheap diner, the kind Mom used to take me to when we had nothing but a few dollars in her purse. I didn’t say much while we ate, and neither did he. But I noticed he wasn’t shaking. When he used to drink, his hands always trembled. This time, they were steady.

After we finished, I paid the bill and leaned back. “Here’s the deal. I’ll help you get cleaned up, find a cheap motel. But you’re not living in my house until I know you’re really sober.”

He nodded. “That’s fair.”

I took him to a shelter where he could shower and get some clean clothes. I found a cheap motel on the edge of town and paid for a week. I even gave him some cash for food. But before I left, I looked him in the eyes. “If I find out you’re drinking, this ends here. Understood?”

“I understand,” he said. “Thank you.”

The week passed, then another. Every few days, I’d check in on him. I half-expected to find him wasted, but he wasn’t. He was working small jobs, sweeping floors at a gas station, unloading boxes at a grocery store. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

One night, I sat across from him at the diner again. “You really haven’t had a drink?”

“No,” he said, looking straight at me. “I know I’ve messed up a lot, son. But I want to be better. I want to be someone you can trust.”

I wanted to believe him. I really did. But trust isn’t something you hand out like spare change. It has to be earned.

After a month, I told him he could move into my place. Just for a trial period. I set clear rules: he had to get a stable job, pay some rent, and no drinking. If he screwed up even once, he was out.

At first, it was awkward. I didn’t know how to talk to him, and he didn’t know how to talk to me. We weren’t father and son; we were strangers living under the same roof. But slowly, things started to shift. He got a steady job at a hardware store. He came home on time. He kept to himself, but he was always respectful.

One evening, I found him sitting on the couch, looking at an old photo of Mom. “She was too good for me,” he said. “I didn’t deserve her.”

“No, you didn’t.”

He nodded. “And I didn’t deserve you either.”

I didn’t say anything. But for the first time, I saw something real in his eyes. Regret. Not the kind that comes from getting caught, but the kind that stays with you, that eats away at you. The kind that makes you want to do better.

It took months, but little by little, I let my guard down. We talked more. I started seeing glimpses of the man he could have been, the father I wished I had growing up. He never asked for forgiveness, and I never said I forgave him. Maybe one day I will. Maybe I won’t. But for now, this was enough.

Life doesn’t always give us clean endings. Sometimes, people change. Sometimes, they don’t. But I’ve learned that bitterness only poisons the one holding it. And while I may never fully trust my father, I no longer hate him. And that’s a start.

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